Other people must have a different definition of 'gritty' than me, because I don't think the current storyline has anything to do with making Captain America 'gritty'. From my perspective, the heroic journey is meaningless without meaningful opposition. And opposition isn't meaningful unless your opponent is genuinely threatening. So Captain America's victories are meaningless unless there is the real possibility of the Red Skull defeating him, which is exactly what happened here.
The ironic part is that, in a way, Captain America was partially responsible for what happened, with the precursor events going back to 2007. In that year, Steve Rogers used a Cosmic Cube taken from the Red Skull to change reality so that the villainous Winter Soldier would regain his memories of having been Bucky Barnes.
This may have inspired SHIELD to use the damaged Cosmic Cube named Kobik to create Pleasant Hill, where super criminals had their personal realities rewritten to turn them into non-powered productive members of society in a fake town/prison. When the villains eventually broke free and rebelled, Steve Rogers tried to convince Kobik to once more use her reality warping powers to fix things. Unfortunately for him, the Red Skull had gotten to her first and filled her head with Hydra propaganda.
tldr, if you repeatedly use reality warping brainwashing to attain your goals, don't be surprised when your enemies do the same thing.
On a related note, this entire Captain America storyline really reminds me of a dark but well written old Ranma 1/2 fanfic titled Ill Met by Starlight (http://www.thekeep.org/~mike/imbs.html), which had the most interesting tagline:
"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV
The ironic part is that, in a way, Captain America was partially responsible for what happened, with the precursor events going back to 2007. In that year, Steve Rogers used a Cosmic Cube taken from the Red Skull to change reality so that the villainous Winter Soldier would regain his memories of having been Bucky Barnes.
This may have inspired SHIELD to use the damaged Cosmic Cube named Kobik to create Pleasant Hill, where super criminals had their personal realities rewritten to turn them into non-powered productive members of society in a fake town/prison. When the villains eventually broke free and rebelled, Steve Rogers tried to convince Kobik to once more use her reality warping powers to fix things. Unfortunately for him, the Red Skull had gotten to her first and filled her head with Hydra propaganda.
tldr, if you repeatedly use reality warping brainwashing to attain your goals, don't be surprised when your enemies do the same thing.
On a related note, this entire Captain America storyline really reminds me of a dark but well written old Ranma 1/2 fanfic titled Ill Met by Starlight (http://www.thekeep.org/~mike/imbs.html), which had the most interesting tagline:
Ranma Saotome is invincible.
If it's got martial arts in it, he'll win, eventually.
This is a good thing.... right?
If it's got martial arts in it, he'll win, eventually.
This is a good thing.... right?
What if things had gone a little differently, though? One day, one different decision, one event out of place, changing.... cascading...
What if Ranma wasn't the hero, but the villain?
----------------------------------------------------"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV